


Incessant Boredom

by doctormissy



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, International Fanworks Day 2016, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 11:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6003918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Valentine's Day 1972 and the Doctor is bored. Everyone is gone, Jo went on a date and he is alone in UNIT base, very very bored, but the Master comes to help him with that in an unexpected way - he suggests watching BBC's Sherlock. The Master really likes it and wants his old friend to watch it too - and the Doctor likes it too. So much it becames their Valentine's Day tradition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incessant Boredom

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write sthg for Valentine's Day and the idea perfectly matched IFD, so I wrote it like that. I love Three/Delgado Master so much and write a lot for them, this time with little Ten/Simm Master too. Hope you enjoy even though there might be some errors and the characters might be slightly out of character.  
> I don't own Doctor Who, but I wish I did.

**1972**

The Doctor was just sitting in his lab, bored. Bored and alone on Valentine’s Day. Not that he’d exactly… required company; he always considered this commercial holiday as folly and often referred to it as ‘rubbish’, but though it was Wednesday UNIT’s base was empty. Everyone was out, celebrating, shopping, drinking wine and coffee and snogging and cuddling or whatever humans do on that day. Even brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart went for a dinner with his wife. He was alone and bored, staring into space and thinking where could he go if his TARDIS was operational and the Dematerialisation circuit on its place, perfectly functioning. 

At least he thought he was. Suddenly clacking of Jo’s heels interrupted his thoughts and he straightened on his chair, turning to the doorway to face his young assistant/friend. She was dressed in knee-length red dress with a white belt with red rounds, high white boots on very high heels and a fluffy white fur coat. Was she going to go on a date too? 

“Ah, hello, Jo. Do you want to--” he started, but she stopped him raising an index finger to the air. The Doctor raised his gray eyebrow in curiousness and let her explain whatever she wanted to tell him.

“Sorry, Doctor, but I am going to have a coffee with Mike. It’s Valentine’s Day if you haven’t noticed and he asked me out. Stay out of trouble, try to avoid the Master and do something with your obvious incessant boredom,” the young human girl suggested to the Time Lord, who was turning back and forth on his swivel chair, humming some ancient Gallifreyan melody to himself and clearly not paying attention to her anymore. “Doctor!” she yelled little louder now, to drag his attention back, “as I said, I am going out, don’t die of boredom, do something productive. Or you can watch television for instance.” 

The Doctor hasn’t even noticed she’s gone until the overwhelming silence overcame him. His laboratory, his blue TARDIS standing in the corner, empty and abandoned; his scientific equipment and cabinets full of flasks and beakers and electrodes and alien objects confiscated during their unending fights… and silence. No one apart from him was there, in the large building in possession of United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Yet still…

A TARDIS noise. He was sure it _is_ the old Gallifreyan time capsule’s roaring and creaking he heard. But the only other TARDIS on Earth was--

The Master, it couldn’t be anyone else. But why? Why did he have to spoil this blissful hour of utter silence? The Doctor started to like and enjoy this feeling some time ago and now it’s gone. 

And why of all days here on Earth this particular day? Did he mean something by it?

The Master landed his time-and-space ship in the middle of his enemy’s laboratory and carefully opened its door. The elegant, ageing man in grey jacket with collar up to the neck stepped out of his TARDIS, which was cloaked as a large cabinet made of metal, and came right in front of the other Time Lord still sitting on his chair, now vigilant. The Master had his hands folded behind his back like he was hiding something-- and he was. But it wasn’t a Tissue Compression Eliminator, a handgun or a syringe with sulphuric acid, which the Doctor would expect of his old friend/enemy, no. It was a DVD.

“I knew you would be bored and alone, hiding in your laboratory on Valentine’s Day, so I came to cheer you up,” the Master said and showed the Doctor what he was holding. That sentence definitely surprised him; he wouldn’t ever think of something like that coming from the Master, who even smiled a little, showing his white teeth. 

Was something else in that? Surely. The Master is still the Master; it wouldn’t be him if he wasn’t planning anything. But the Doctor decided to not to mind it and behave like nothing unusual is happening at all; he smiled to, stood up and took the box with a DVD from his supposedly arch enemy. 

He wasn’t surprised that he sees a piece of modern technology which hasn’t been invented yet here, in the seventies. He took a closer look on it - it was the whole first season of an early 21st century TV series called ‘Sherlock’. Something about Sherlock Holmes living in 2009?

He knew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and he knew he wouldn’t be very glad if he saw this. But never mind, he’ll watch it, why not. He had a 40-inch-diagonal television inside his TARDIS, in one of the entertainment rooms he barely used, so he could go there and play it, why not. 

He was more surprised by the fact the Master likes it or the fact he knows it at all when it comes from Earth and _not_ this era, which meant he travelled around a bit, he must have. Oh, he liked this planet as same as the Doctor, despite his several attempts to destroy it in causing the Doctor harm, although he will never admit it. So the Master wasn’t who the Doctor always thought he is after all; at least not entirely.

“ _Sherlock_? Where did you come to this?” the Doctor asked mistrustfully, looking the Master right into his eyes.

He frowned in pretended insult; the Doctor questioned his intents? Did he think there was something else behind all that than a Valentine’s Day present? “During devising my plans in destroying this miserable little planet which you are so fond of I did some travelling and I discovered this very interesting and exciting story and I rather liked it. I thought it might have been a good distraction and amusement since I know you quite well and I also knew you’ll like it,” the Master answered, defending himself; he tried to make his old childhood friend believe him that there really isn’t anything bad underneath it.

“Oh, did you?” the Doctor responded, “Well, let’s see, shall we?” He invited him into his TARDIS without properly thinking it out, which he might regret later, but he didn’t bother with consequences of his decision right now, because he had enough of solitude now and wanted to spend some time with one of his own kind. 

The Doctor and the Master walked in silence through the TARDIS’s white, light corridors until they reached the ‘screening room’. The Doctor took the DVD the Master brought, inserted it to the player and pressed ‘play’. The first episode, ‘A Study in Pink’, was on.

The Doctor was absorbed by the theme song, let alone the story itself. Yes, he really _did_ like it, the Master was right at least this once. 

They were sitting on an old leather brown sofa, very close to each other; closer than neither the Doctor nor the Master would find comfortable, as the sofa was relatively narrow, but they didn’t mind, because they were so engrossed into the detective story with very interesting and very intricate plot. It was the best Valentine the Doctor ever had. 

Well, for this regeneration at least.

 

***

 

**2008**

“Hello, dear. Finally, Valentine’s Day’s here. What do you say, as usual?” the Master excitedly asked the Doctor with a boyish grin on his face, already running through the TARDIS’s corridors to the screening room. It was exactly where the Doctor had it the first time he was in, even that old sofa stayed. It witnessed many Valentine’s Days and many more Valentine’s Day’s evenings. 

The Doctor followed him, his brown striped jacket waving behind him as he ran. They were always looking forward to this day for the whole year. 

“As usual. All ten seasons of ‘Sherlock’ ready to play,” the Doctor shouted cheerfully, taking the DVD with season one. The DVD. He inserted it into the player same as he did every year for thirty-six years, taking the remote control with him to the sofa. He jumped on his - right - side of the couch; the Master had his hands rested on the backrest, usual black suit jacket flung on a chair. 

The Doctor looked at the Master and grinned, as did the Master. Then he reached out for a kiss; the Doctor gave him a long, intense, passionate and loving kiss with tongues involved. Both of them grinned again as they pulled away and the Doctor put the first episode on. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Doctor.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”


End file.
